A brief overview of the capacities of public forest administrations in climate change work in the moist forests countries of Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract:

The work of Public Forest Administrations (PFAs) has evolved from forest management, to sustainable forest management, to management
of forests and woodlands for ecosystem goods and services, and ultimately to climate change adaptation and mitigation. The objective of this
review is to give an overview of the capacities of PFAs in forest-related climate work. Findings have shown that though they still exist under
national governments like in the colonial era, in the majority of moist forest countries PFAs have been transformed from implementing mere
forest protection and conservation into modern people-centred and participatory approaches. Several factors have contributed to this transformation,
chief among them being that nowadays the forestry sector embraces sustainable development which emphasizes a shift towards sustainable
resource use rather than ‘old age’ conservation. Most important though, PFAs are not only mandated to carry out conventional forestry
but also forest-related climate change work in response to new and emerging environmental challenges. However, PFAs lack physical, human
and financial capacities to implement their work due to being under-funded because they are not a top priority in national budgets regardless
of the paradigm shift. Furthermore, there is lack of stakeholder participation, unclear access and equitable benefit sharing, inadequate capacity
in estimation and reporting on National Green House Gases (GHG) inventories, in application of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) Good Practice Guidance (GPG).